CNN 2010-04-26

A feature focus on a formidable feline1. You know it. Fridays are awesome2. Thank you for spending part of yours with CNN Student News, from the CNN center. I’m Carl Azuz.

First up, President Obama is asking Wall Street to be part of his efforts to reform Wall Street. We’ve talked about this issue of financial reform this week. The president and members of Congress are looking at the ways to protect the US economy from another financial crisis. Yesterday, President Obama took his message to New York, to Wall Street. He’s pushing a bill that is being debated in the Senate right now and he explained why he wants the financial industry to get behind it.

‘I’m here today specifically when I speak to the titans of industry here. ‘Cause I want to urge you to join us instead of fighting us in this effort. (Yeah.) I’m here. I’m here because I believe that these reforms are, in the end, not only in the best interest of our country but in the best interest of the financial sector3. ’

But some members of Wall Street didn’t agree with everything that President said and there has been some debate between Democrats4 and Republicans over how financial reform should be done. Some lawmakers are criticizing the president’s proposal because they say it’ll just end up helping5 Wall Street and costing taxpayers6.

‘Now, while the president says he wants to reform Wall Street and the bill that we have in front of us, and we’ll actually provide permanent bailouts for Wall Street and enshrine too big to fail. And things that our Republicans don’t do in our bill to reform the regulatory system.’

Quick follow-up on that story about an oil rig fire in the Gulf7 of Mexico, you can see it in this iReport from one of the rescue workers. The coast guard says the rig has sunk. That happened Thursday when we recorded this show yesterday. 11 people who’d been working on the rig were still missing.

Heading overseas to Thailand where grenade attacks in the capital city of Bangkok have killed at least three people. A Thail official said the grenades came from an area where people who were protesting the government were gathered together. The protesters say they are not responsible. They have been fighting with police for a while here you can see them throwing rocks and other things at police. They support the country’s former prime minister and they want the current leader to leave office. After these recent attacks, Thailand’s prime minister called an emergency meeting to figure out how to deal with the situation.

Moving from Thailand to the Persian Gulf now, where Iran is running a massive military drill expected to last three days. An Iranian official says the goal is to show off the country’s military strength. It might look like a real battle what you are seeing here is just practice. US Navy says Iran has done this sort of thing in the past. This one is getting more attention because Iran talked about it ahead of time.